Tamara Hasselblatt - paintings - Villa Rosenthal in Jena

Villa Rosenthal, Jena

In autumn 2009 the overdue obligation towards the Jewish donors will be fulfilled after decades

Clara Rosenthal
Red chalk drawing, 45 x 48

Eduard Rosenthal
Pencil drawing, 30 x 35

A Jewish couple, Clara and Eduard Rosenthal, lived in Jena from the late 19th to the early 20th century. They lost their only son in the first World War and bequeathed their villa to the city of Jena after their death on condition that it was used for cultural purposes, and that the partner who was still alive could remain there till his or her death. Professor Eduard Rosenthal was a lawyer and is the ‘father’ of the constitution of the state of Thuringia. He held the post of dean of the University of Jena,

* - His photograph in the university was taken down during the Third Reich, whereas the photograph of the person who was dean during the Nazi era continued to hang there even during the GDR period and into the 1990s! Fortunately, a photograph of Eduard Rosenthal has meantime been hung there.

* was involved in various cultural activities, founded the Reading Society, was a co-founder of the Kunstverein and, together with his wife Clara, held lively social functions at his villa – what we would basically regard as a ‘salon’. Eduard Rosenthal died in the 1920s.

The Nazis isolated Clara Rosenthal; she was no longer permitted to subscribe to a newspaper, had to give up her radio and was prohibited from attending cultural functions. Ultimately, the Nazis drove the over 70-year-old to her death by suicide. Neither during the Nazi period, nor in the GDR, nor after the fall of the Berlin Wall was the Villa Rosenthal used for the purpose stipulated by the Rosenthals in their will. In the 1990s, the city of Jena handed the villa over to the second largest building group in Thuringia, JenaWohnen (meantime an independent subsidiary of the city). After a change in the management, the new director, Mr. Wosche-Graf, fortunately devoted his attention to the history of the villa and thus to the Rosenthals. He mobilised forces and funds in Jena so that Villa Rosenthal could be refurbished and renovated. It is scheduled to open in autumn 2009.

11. November 1941 - Acryl auf Leinwand 55 x 70

"11. November 1941"
Acrylic on canvas, 55 x 70

The artist Tamara Hasselblatt has been selected for the opening exhibition; several artists from Jena will also exhibit works in the foyer.

This is a considerable honour for Tamara Hasselblatt. She regards it as an opportunity to artistically return to the Rosenthals a place – indeed their place – in a villa which was built according to their ideas and plans. She hopes that these works, which allude to the Rosenthals, will bring their story to mind. She has no wish to call this compensation, which is too big a word, and impossible, in any case. Yet in her own way, the artist would like to show the Rosenthals the respect which was so flagrantly denied them over the decades.

She has therefore painted a portrait of Eduard and of Clara Rosenthal. It was extremely difficult and complicated to get hold of photographic material at all, let alone good material. Finally, thanks to intense research and the generous help of different people in and around Jena, she received two digitized photographs of Eduard Rosenthal. She was however, forced to abandon her search for a portrait photograph of Clara Rosenthal; here the Nazis had been terrifyingly thorough. There is still a hope, however, that perhaps photographs, furniture or artworks from the Rosenthals’ estate still exist in some private houses somewhere.

In addition to the portraits, Tamara Hasselblatt has also painted other works for this occasion: two paintings are inspired by the speech made by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, who survived Buchenwald; one work engages with the fate of Clara Rosenthal; the triptych Überall ist Ewigkeit (Eternity is Everywhere) is clearly influenced by her preoccupation with the fate of Clara Rosenthal; its right “wing” (130x130) is already visible on this website.

* * *

Above and beyond the opening exhibition, Villa Rosenthal is of course a topic whose importance extends far beyond Jena.

The villa itself has a remarkable history, involving the builders and first inhabitants Eduard and Clara Rosenthal, according to whose very unusual ideas it was constructed; the fate of Clara Rosenthal in the Third Reich; and the fate of the villa in the following decades, when it was used, but not in accordance with the original owners’ wishes. A further piece in the mosaic of its history is the restoration by JenaWohnen – thanks to the managing director Stefan Wosche-Graf, who embraced this important project and mobilized further forces and funds to salvage the villa. The exhibition opening is a door into a new chapter “Villa Rosenthal”, adding another aspect to the story to the villa and providing the starting shot for a new cultural undertaking in Jena.

The villa is scheduled to be used for cultural functions and encounters, as a venue for conferences, and as a place of residence and work for two scholarship-holders active in the art and culture sectors.